I'll second that. My fiance's father finally upgraded his home television to a new flat screen. Now, you can say whatever you want about the tech-savvy of "old" people, but this guy's a retired Navy pilot with an engineering degree from the USNA, and generally the sort of guy that people respect for his intelligence. It took him two weeks to figure out which connections he needed to make to persuade the DVD player to work correctly. It's absurd.
Meanwhile, I've been running home audio off my computer for a few years now. Suse 10.0 with what is now an older processor (just an Intel 1Ghz, with a lowly 512MB memory -- practically nothing for today's standards). M-Audio makes a high end sound card with RCA jacks (or, I'm sure, if you spend more, you can get digital-optical-fiber-whatever) that send the sound to my amp -- Swedish made, with the minimum number of connections for my needs.
When I eventually buy a TV, I'll do the same thing: the multimedia machine is capable of storing DVDs and streaming them to an arbitrary output. I'll just get a decent video card with an output of my choice.
CD Player? DVD Player? Swapping physical media? How quaint! How "Early 21st Century!"
